Some general stuff

Jono

New Member
Firstly I have a ficus, not sure exactly which one, it has the darker green leaves and more of a weeping willow type structure to it. Recently it has started to lose leaves, they go yellow and fall off and this seems to be happening at random through out the tree to new leaves and old leaves. More importantly the leaves that fall off have these small black dots on them, almost like mildew. Anyone know what this is and how I can rectify it without using any chameleon harming chemicals? The leaves that aren't effected seem very healthy and as it only seems to be affecting some of the tree it is still growing well.

Secondly I recently started gutloading my crickets with additional citrus to help ward off a recent bought of mouth rot. The chams seemed to love the taste and developed a renewed vigor at feeding time, almost falling out of the tree trying to get to me when they saw crickets in hand. But everything in moderation! I should have staggered the citrus gutloading as after awhile it appears to have upset the stomachs of my two smallest chameleons. After about 3 weeks of citrus their stools suddenly became less solid, more of a sticky texture, even though the brown and white colour remained looking good. At the same time they both went completely off crickets and its taken A LOT of coaxing to get them back onto a new batch of citrus free feeders.

A good learning experience I wanted to share, reminding us that too much of a good thing is bad :)
 
Ficus trees do lose leaves if change in location. But you have bugs. Take a very little dish soap mix it with water, spray & spray the tree so every part of it is wet, wait 12 hours rinse with lots of water with no soap. You will need to cover the dirt with clean rocks or change out the dirt. Changing the dirt on the ficus will most likely cause it to drop leaves but it will come back.
 
Thanks thought it was something like that, will give it a go. It's a bit of a spare tree so will keep the little ones off it until it comes right.
 
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